Posted on

Internet Safety For Kids (Part 1) ~ Identifying Online Groomers

On Feb 6, 2018, I was invited to attend Safer Internet Day 2018 hosted by Google and I had written a short post about it on my Decoding Your Child Facebook Page:

Safer Internet Day 2018 hosted by Google.

Heard from a strong panel about what parents can do to ensure internet safety for their children. What can we do about our children’s incessant gaming or addiction to their devices? What do we do if our children experience cyberbullying?

Very insightful sharing on strategies but the one point that kept coming across: establish a strong relationship with our children so they are more open to our guidance.

A great quote:
“Rules with relationship lead to response.
Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.”

 That is so true. If our relationship and connection with our children is broken, they will rebel against any rules we establish.

However, if our relationship with them is strong, if our connection with them is strong, it means there is trust, love and respect between our children and us. Then they will be more willing to respect the boundaries we set and be more open to the mediation strategies listed in the photo below.

So let us all strive to decode our children. Let us understand them so we can support their love and passion. When our children know we are on their side, they will naturally be drawn to us for guidance.

And I had signed off with my signatory, “Happy parenting!”

Pride Before Fall

There I was feeling rather positive that I had protected my children from cyberbullying. I was rather pleased with myself for turning my son’s “addiction” to gaming into a passion for programming and for limiting my daughter’s time on MineCraft. I was so confident my teens were safe on the internet. After all, they were not allowed to play online games with people whom they did not know, or in the case of MineCraft, they were not allowed to play with chats on. As far as I knew, my son was still coding in Khan academy and my teenage daughter played MineCraft hosted on my son’s server. There had definitely been no indication of cyberbullying going on. Yes, they were internet-safe. I was certain they would obey my internet rules since I had explained extensively to them the dangers of the internet.  Besides, my emotional connection with my children is strong. They would tell me if something were amiss.

Unfortunately, I could not have been more mistaken.

Rude Awakening

After I posted my FB post and got home, I went to check in with the children. My son, as usual, was coding. My teen daughter was busy tapping away on her phone. As soon as she saw me, she put her phone down. Something felt off. So out of curiosity, I asked her for her phone.

“Why?” she asked. I told her I had just attended an internet safety talk and I wanted to be sure about her and her brother’s safety online. Since she was no longer on the phone, I would like to see what she had been doing on it.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” was her reply. She had never expressed resistance to my requests for “spot checks” on any of her devices or her computer before. Her demeanour now was making me extremely worried.

“I’m sorry I must. To be safe. Please.” I said. Reluctantly, she handed me her phone. “I’d rather you didn’t, mom,” she repeated.

“I must. I’m sorry,” I replied as I took her phone with an empathetic look.

As I was going through the list of persons she had been WhatsApping with, a new message notification popped up. It was from an app I had never seen appeared. The icon that flashed looked like a blue game console. I caught sight of the word, “Discord”. The message disappeared before I read it.

Curious, I went hunting for it. I asked my teens what Discord was and my son told me it was an app for online chat. Online chat? What was that about? I scrolled through my daughter’s phone to find the app and found it hidden on the second page of a cluster of apps named, “Unused”. It was intentionally stored in a place where I would least likely check.

I opened the app to read the chats. It had started about 6 weeks ago, and it took me about 14 hours to get through every single message. Needless to say, I was horrified by what I discovered.

Was My Daughter Being “Groomed”?

I had read about internet dangers like online grooming. That was why I had forbidden my children from playing any online games with people whom they did not know in real life. And I had explained to them why as well as the presence of dangers like grooming. Never in a million years did I expect that any of my children could be subjected to it.

The first message had started 6 weeks ago. As I read the series of messages, I kept seeing comments that raised red flags. Was my daughter being groomed?

What is Grooming?

According to National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in United Kingdom, “grooming is when someone builds an emotional connection with a child to gain their trust for the purposes of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or trafficking.” I confess I do not know the intention of this person who has been contacting my daughter, but I do recognize the signs of grooming. Below were the signs I flagged.

Signs of Grooming

1) Moving from public chat room to private chat
This is the first sign of grooming. Groomers want to “work their magic” in private. Once they manage to get the child into a private chat platform, they can say whatever they want and manipulate the child without anyone the wiser.

That was how it happened for my daughter. She “met” this person, let’s call her X, on an online chat while playing MineCraft. Yes, she should have known better than to turn on the online chat. Unfortunately, in her naiveté, she did not know better. X seemed nice enough. X was helpful on the chat forum. By moving to the private chat, they could talk to each other without clogging up the public chat forum. What harm could there be?

2) Planting insidious seeds of negativity against the parents
Groomers typically plant seeds of negativity against the parents or trusted adults of the child. They sow seeds of discord and distrust to alienate the child and gain the trust of the child. As the grooming progresses, their attacks against the child’s trusted adults get more frequent and vicious.

I was surprised that within the first day of private chatting, X had planted a seed of negativity against my husband and me. It was a very subtle, almost inconspicuous side comment. My daughter had complained about the behaviour issues my preschooler had and X commented, “that’s the kind of things they learn from school or bad parents (emphasis is mine).” It was only Day 1 and X had already launched the first volley of attack.

After a few days, X referred to us as “the monsters” and called me “mean”. Within a month, I was “manipulative” for restricting my daughter’s access to MineCraft. X even wrote an entire essay on why I was “cruel, selfish and irresponsible and uncaring.” The barrage of accusations had left me breathless and incredulous. How could someone who did not even know me write about me with so much venom and hatred?

It did not end there. X even told my daughter that by law, when my girl turned 16, X could adopt her regardless of whether my husband or I agreed to it or not. And X would do that for her because X would not be the horrible parents that we were.

3) Fishing for information about the child
Now that there is a potential victim who is separated from the crowd, into a private chat platform, groomers need to know more about the potential victim. Instead of asking for information directly which would raise alarms in the victim, groomers will gently fish for information like age, name, location, school, etc.

X was smooth and praised the public chat forum of the MineCraft server they were on (no, they were not on my son’s server) for keeping users anonymous in order to protect the identity of all the users. X started talking about their avatars and how that could also help maintain anonymity. My daughter, being the trusting girl that she is, happily described herself. By the end of week 2, X knew everything about our family, including how we looked like. (yes my daughter sent X photos of the family.) The only saving grace here was my daughter refused to divulge our address despite repeated enticement from X that she would receive gifts in the mail if she would tell X her address.

4) Pushing for voice calls, then video calls
How would groomers authenticate the identity of their potential victims. How would the groomers know if the victim is indeed a child and not another groomer? How would they know if this child looks appealing? The best way is to do a video call so they can see for themselves. But to request for a video call right away would seem hasty and raise suspicions. So they will start by first suggesting voice calls, and when familiarity is increased, video calls. No only will the video show how the child looks like, it will also show the environment and setting of where the computer is and how much privacy the child has when online. In addition, once the child is comfortable doing video chats, the groomers could potentially get the child to do all kinds of stuff in front of the camera.

X was smart. The first few voice calls were “wonky”. My daughter could not hear X. When X’s voice sounded “robotic”, X’s reason was Discord (the app) was unstable. Finally, after several weeks, the voice issue was sorted out. My daughter could hear X (I suspect by then X had a voice changer installed properly). And a couple weeks later, X asked for video chats. In the video, X appeared to be who she said she was, an elderly lady who had difficulty walking. To me, she looked like an oversized man with a wig (X had sent my girl photos of herself).

5) Sowing ideas of meeting
In the case of online grooming, where the groomers do not know the physical location of the potential victim, they will casually plant an idea of a meet up. Over the duration of the grooming, they will suggest it more and more frequently until a request or suggestion for a meetup seems almost natural.

As the weeks passed, X would keep planting notions that it would be so awesome if they could meet. Or if my daughter were old enough and had enough money, she could fly to X.

6) Being the first to warn about groomers
The first one to raise a suspicion tends to appear less suspicious. Groomers are psychological experts. They know that to allay the fears of their victim, they need to be the first to raise the dangers of internet groomers. If they raise it first, their victim will naturally think they cannot be groomers. After all, who would want to be the whistle blower of their own crime?

And that was exactly what X did. Very early in their chats, X wrote, “I sound like some creep trying to gain your friendship and confidence to meet up and kidnap you.” If X could outright talk about online “kidnappers”, surely she (assuming she’s a she) can’t be one, right?

7) Suggesting to move to other “play” platforms
Groomers typically do not work alone. They have a network for which they help one another “snare” victims. If they know the physical location of their victim, they could redirect the victim to another platform where groomers from the victim’s location hang out. The “introducer” can get a fee for it.

Within a week of chatting, X suggested for my daughter to play on another server. When that failed despite repeated prompting, X introduced her to another group game where gamers exchange resources to get what they need. That would require my girl to interact with even more strangers, strangers X knew and could potentially, by transference of trust, get my girl to trust them. Luckily, my daughter was not interested.

8) Paving the way for appearance of a man
If the groomers had presented themselves as females to their potential victims, there is a high likelihood they would want to introduce a man into the picture. In fact, they would want their victim to believe this man to be someone whom the groomers trust and love. That would help with the transference of trust and reduce the suspicion or hesitancy of their victim accepting this new male figure.

Within 2 days of chatting, X casually mentioned something about sending a man of my girl’s dream into her path. The whole sowing was so well planned. First, X talked about how awesome her husband was. Then when my daughter commented how nice it was that X had a great husband, X casually tossed in the “fantasy” of sending a nice man to my girl. Over the course of the 6 weeks, X would hint that it would be great if X’s husband met up with my daughter. X even mentioned her husband was ok with her spending the night with a male friend. I presumed X was paving the way to tell my daughter it would be ok to spend the night with her husband should he appear.

In fact, on several occasions, the person who appeared on the chats identified himself as X’s husband. It was disturbing because there was really no way to tell who was in the chat until that person said he was the husband.

9) Establishing trust with the child
How do groomers establish trust so quickly with their victim? Simple. They are quick to identify similarities in interests, experience, possessions, even illness, to say, “Look, we are so alike. No wonder we click. We are best buddies.” That helps to draw their victim closer to them.

Time and again, X was very quick to point out how identical she was with my daughter. From objects like books, to interests in art, to physical ailments, to experiences with betrayal by friends, to everything under the sun., whatever my daughter mentioned, X exclaim how alike they were. Call me a skeptic, but the occurrence of similarities between the two of them was way too high to be coincidental.

10) Building deep connections with the child
Groomers can be really caring and nurturing, or appear to be so. They will dig for things that trouble their victim and offer comfort to them. They will praise and flatter their victims and lament why no one (ie the other adults in the child’s life) else saw the strengths of the child. They make themselves appear to be the one and only person who cares about and love the child, who will protect the child. They make everyone else the villain. Because of their showering of love and concern of their victim, the latter gets emotionally drawn towards their groomers.

I guess I didn’t have to elaborate on this with X. She was really good at showering attention on my girl. Apparently, X was on a different time zone and she made it very clear that she would stay up to chat with my daughter anytime she needed X. X would comfort my girl when she was sad, and berate others (ie me) for making life miserable for my daughter. She was very effective at showing she was on my girl’s side and she would fight all monsters for her. How could one not feel loved by and connected to someone like that?

11) Identifying the level of isolation of the child
Groomers know if their victim has a strong relationship with other adults in her life, there is a likelihood the victim will, at some point, turn to these other adults for help when she is unsure of how to respond to the groomers requests. Hence, they will attempt to figure out how isolated their victim is. If the victim is not isolated enough, they will resort to attack those close to the victim till she feels totally lonely and has no one else left except the groomers themselves.

And that was what X did. When she first started badmouthing me and blaming me for not allowing my girl to go on MineCraft, my daughter had defended me and explained why that had happened. However, as the days passed, X would add a comment here and there and illustrate how unreasonable I was. As a teen, it was understandable, at least to me, why it was appealing for my daughter to see me in that light. So by and by, my daughter turned against me. Through it all, X kept asking if there was anyone at all that my daughter could go to. And repeated, my daughter said she only had X.

12) Threatening to spill the beans
Grooming is a psychological game. After establishing that the victim is completely isolated and dependent on the groomers, they would then threaten, either seriously or jokingly, to tell the secret to their victim’s parents. Out of fear, their victim will toe the line and play by their rules.

Yes, X did that, multiple times. Sometimes the threats came across as jokes. Sometimes they sounded like threats. X even planting the fear that she had a private investigator searching for my girl and that this private investigator could tell me everything. Knowing my daughter, she would never want me to know of this secret because she knew she was not supposed to be playing MineCraft with chat on. She was afraid that if I found out, I would ban her from playing MineCraft or that I would confiscate all her devices so she would not be able to interact with X. Naturally, she grew more compliant as the chat went on.

Conclusion

So there you have it, the 12 signs I identified from the chats that looked like X was grooming my daughter. What would you do if you were in my position?

I will share what I did with my discovery in my next blog post Internet Safety for Kids (Part 2)) ~ Prying My Daughter From The Groomer’s Grasp.

Happy parenting!

~ Vivian Kwek ~

Posted on

Undoing the Work of a “Teacher”

I spent some time reconnecting with my little preschooler who hasn’t seen me last 4 days because of my intense training program. What she said broke my heart.

A said, “Teacher Vanee has left. She went to another school. K1 (Kindergarten 1st year) is too boring, and the naughty boy doesn’t listen.”

I was taken aback by her comment so I asked her what made her think that’s why the teacher had left.

“That’s what Teacher Vanee said to us. She said she is leaving because K1 is too boring and the naughty boy doesn’t listen,” she explained.

So many alarms screamed at me that, for a moment, I didn’t know how to react. After a deep breath and a pause, I decided to begin with the “naughty” boy.   I know exactly which boy A is referring to because she has spoken of him often. The boy who can’t sit still. The boy who is rough. The boy who hits. The boy who shouts at his classmates. Basically, the boy whom the teacher calls “naughty boy”.

The “Naughty” Boy
This little boy, Z, is brought to and from school every morning by his grandmother. It is obvious his grandmother loves him because I have seen her hug him occasionally when he cries while waiting in line for the classroom door to open. But more often, I hear her abusing him verbally, calling him names. I have seen her lift her hand to him and he flinched (a sign he has been frequently hit). I have even seen, from a distance, her hitting him. The one time I intervened was when we were walking to school and they were right in front of us. She had scolded him, “You are so naughty. Nobody likes you. Even your teacher doesn’t like you.” When the boy attempted to hug her, she shoved him away. “I also don’t like you,” she responded in disgust.

Here was a small little 5-year-old being verbally hurt by his caregiver, someone whom he loves. And when he sought some comfort from her, she had shoved him off with a hurtful comment laced with repulsion. That tore my heart and I asked her why she spoke to him that way. We had a little conversation and she justified her own behaviour.

It’s hard to teach someone who doesn’t want to learn. So I ended with “He is just a kid and he needs love.” Ever since, that grandmother has made sure she keeps a distance from me when sending her grandson to school.

I have, on many occasions, asked A to stop calling or referring to Z as “naughty boy”. But I understand it’s hard for her do so because that’s what she hears everyday in school. So after A’s comment about why her teacher was leaving, I asked A to stop calling Z “naughty”. I explained that he behaved the way he did because he had not been taught correctly how to behave. He may have been taught how to behave, but because he is not taught properly, he still hasn’t learned.

His Mistake Was Mirroring
I explained to A that the reason she doesn’t shout at or hit her friends at school is because she is taught that yelling and hitting other people is wrong. Not only is she taught that those behaviour is not acceptable, she also doesn’t see anyone at home yelling or hitting. What she experiences at home is the same as what she is taught. So she learns.

But for Z, it is different. Yes, he is definitely taught not to shout at or hit his friends. Umpteen times.  But he is being shouted at and hit, not only at home, but in public as well. So he is confused. He doesn’t understand why he can’t do what his grandmother (and perhaps other members in the household) does. And when he is confused, he just mirrors the behaviour he always sees, which is shouting at and hitting people.

The Boy Needs Love
I also told A that Z needs a lot of love. I told her if Z is nasty to her, she can protect herself by walking away and telling the teacher. But before she does that, she needs to tell Z, “My mom says you need love and I need to be kind to you. But it doesn’t mean you can shout at/hit me.” A nodded her head and she repeated the sentence several times. With each repetition, her eyes teared more.

I asked her if she felt sad for Z and she said yes. She also said Z was sad that Teacher Vanee was leaving.

I explained that he is sad because he loves Teacher Vanee. And he is sad because he believes it is he who drove Teacher Vanee away. I told A that my heart breaks for Z.

Why The Teacher Left
Next I told A that Teacher Vanee did not leave because school was boring or that Z was naughty. Teacher Vanee could have left because she found a school that gives her more money, or she found a school which is more enjoyable for her, or she found a school closer to her home.

“No GOOD teacher would leave simply because one child does not listen. A GOOD teacher will do everything in her power to help the child, to teach the child. And no GOOD teacher will leave because school is boring. A GOOD teacher will MAKE her class and lessons fun.” In fact, I told her I am glad Teacher Vanee has left because I have long felt she is not a suitable teacher for preschoolers. I am glad she found another job which suits her better and I hope she is not teaching preschoolers.

Impact on the Children
My heart remained heavy for the day. I feel sorry that Z will live under the guilt of chasing his teacher away. I feel sorry for her students who now will see their K1 life as boring (because their teacher had said so).

I am glad Teacher Vanee has left my daughter’s school, but I dread the impact she would have on her new students.

– Vivian Kwek –

 

 

Posted on

How To Protect Our Children From Sex Predators like Joshua Robinson?

I have been following the underage sex case of Joshua Robinson with concern. While I feel he deserves a stronger sentence for the unconscionable acts he has done, I am more concerned by the behavior of the 2 underaged girls who had consented to his sexual advance.

Why did Robinson get away with a relatively light sentence despite the furore the sentence had caused? Firstly, it is because the teenagers were over 14 years old, which meant they were not minors. Thus Robinson could not be charged with having sex with minors which carries a heavier sentence. Secondly, it is because he did not coerce them into sex. The girls had consented to it. That meant he could not be charged with statutory rape which also carries a heavier sentence .

Does it mean it was the fault of the girls? I think it would be superficial and unfair to blame the girls. The buck goes further than the girls themselves.

Why? Now let us think about how Robinson got busted? It was because a 6-year-old girl had told her parent what Robinson had shown her.  What had prompted her to tell her parent? Did she know what Robinson showed her was wrong?  How did she know that?

The law does not fully protect our children from sexual predation. Only we, parents, can do it.

How can we protect our children?

1) Sexual Education

a) When they are young…
From the time my children were toddlers, I taught them the actual names for their private parts. A young child who is able to name his/her private parts in anatomically correct terms is announcing to the world that he/she has been taught what those are.  It also signals to others that it is likely the child knows about inappropriate touches.  Sexual predators will stay away from children like that.

When my children were preschoolers, I taught them that no one was allowed to touch or see their privates parts. Likewise, they know no one can ask them to touch or see other people’s private parts. And I mean no one. Not I, not their dad, not their sibling, not even their doctor without us being present. They were taught to let us know if anything like that happened.

My 4-year-old still reminds me that she needs to wash herself when I shower her and I love it.  I always use it as an opportunity to reinforce that lesson for her.

b) When they are older…
I started talking about the bees and birds with my children when they were between 10-12 years old. The look on their faces when they realized what their parents did to conceive them was priceless. And that was when I started talking about when sex is ok. Although the topic still makes them squirm somewhat (they are both teenagers now), they know it is not a taboo topic. Once they overcame the initial discomfort, we were able to talk about the topic in a very carefree manner. Most importantly, my children feel comfortable enough to approach me with questions on this topic at any time.  And they do.

Giving our children sexual education is not equivalent to encouraging them to engage in sex. We will do more harm to them by keeping this subject shrouded in mystery. By speaking openly to our children about this, they learn it is not a shameful topic. It encourages them to talk to us about it instead of getting their information from strangers. The problem with them turning to strangers for such information is that they can then be easily led astray.

2) Close Relationship

However, in order for our children to feel comfortable talking to us about such a personal topic, we must first have a close relationship with them. And having a close relationship is not just about spending time. We can spend 24/7 with someone and still feel disconnected with him/her. Hence, what we need to do as parents is to invest time establishing emotional connection with our children. The more personal and private a topic, the stronger our emotional connection need to be in order for them to approach us with it.

Conclusion

Let us all do our part to prevent the likes of Joshua Robinson from robbing our children of their innocence. Let us educate our children because knowledge is power. We need to arm our children so they know how to protect themselves.

 

Posted on

What Makes A Champion?

 

Joseph Isaac Schooling, 21, has just won Singapore’s first Olympic Gold. Not only did he win an Olympic gold medal, he made an Olympic Record for the 100m Men’s Butterfly.

How did Joseph achieve this feat? What inspired him? What made him tick?

As a parent, I wanted to know what kind of support his parents gave him. I also wanted to know the “ingredients” needed to raise a champion.

I was curious and this was what I found.

1) Have Strong Parental Support

Whenever I see successful youths, I know they have a strong support system behind them. Typically, that support comes from their parent(s). Parental support comes in various ways. In Joseph’s case, I see 3 kinds of support.

a) Encouraging His Passion
May Schooling, Joseph’s mom, has said that the passion for swimming comes from Joseph. Neither she nor Colin, Joseph’s dad, forced it on him. Instead of suppressing his love for swimming so he could spend more time studying and taking the traditional path to success, they did everything in their power to ensure he can pursue his passion, including sending him to the US when he was 14 so he could receive the best training.

[Edit (12 Aug) After I published this post, I read an interview given by Colin in Today. In that interview, Colin mentioned that he and his wife had collected an extensive swim library comprising of handwritten notes of Joseph’s swims, including details like split times and cadence. They also learned as much as they could about competitive swimming through attending technical courses and swim clinics. Although swimming was Joseph’s passion, his parents did all they could to learn about it so they could provide more indepth motivation and advice to him. It is easy to see then how much support his parents have given him to pursue his passion and how they have helped motivate him for success.]

b) Helping Him Clear Obstacles
When Joseph was 15, May sought and received deferment from National Service (NS) so that he could spend his time training for his competitions. Yet, Joseph’s parents have no intention of letting him skip his obligations to his country. They still expect him to return to fulfill his NS duties. Even as they support his passion, they are mindful to instill in him the value of loyalty towards his country.

c) Unshakeable Faith In Him
Not only did Joseph’s parents provide support and help him clear obstacles, they had an unshakeable belief in his ability. In a 2013 interview, May confidently said that Joseph will be a finalist in 2016.  That faith, I believe, would have boosted Joseph’s confidence, leading to his can-do attitude.

[Edit (12 Aug) In the same  interview mentioned in my edit above, Colin Schooling hit the nail on the head.

“For parents, whatever your children do, just have confidence in them, and just love them.” – Colin Schooling]

Lesson for me:
Respect and honour my children’s passions. Do everything in my power to help them fan and develop those passions. Even if it is the path less trodden, have faith that my children will achieve success because it is self-driven. And especially if it is the less trodden path, my children will need even more support and encouragement from my husband and me. Move mountains for them if necessary, but keep them grounded. And more importantly, have faith in them and let them know and feel it too.

2) Find A Role Model

When Joseph was 6, he learned that his granduncle Lloyd Valberg was Singapore’s first-ever Olympian at the 1948 Olympics. From that point on, Joseph aspired to not only be an Olympian, but to also win an Olympic medal.

When he was 13 years old, he took a photo of himself with Michael Phleps, his idol. 8 years later, he competed against his idol and won.

Lesson for me:
Everyone needs a role model to look up to and aspire towards. Likewise, my children need role models in what they do. Their role models will inspire them in ways I cannot. Yet, at the same time, my husband and I are their role models in the values and mindsets we want them to have. Hence, we need to be mindful of what we say and do.

3) Bounce Back From Failures

While attempting to qualify for 200m Butterfly for Olympics 2012, Joseph had to scramble minutes before his heats to find a replacement swim cap and goggles. That distraction caused him to register a poor swim and he did not qualify for the finals at the Olympics. While understandably disappointed, Joseph had said it was a learning experience.  He took heart that he was still very young and had a long way to go.  In 2016, he came back fighting harder, ending with a gold medal in Rio.

Joseph has exhibited the mindset of a champion. He looks at things positively. He is engaged in the positive thinking cycle.

Lesson for me:
Failures do not define us.  Instead we can choose to learn from them (again that is engaging in the positive thinking cycle).  In helping my children overcome their perceived “failures”, I will be mindful not to harp on what they have done wrong previously but will consciously remind them what they can do right.

4) Create a Goal

During an interview with Straits Times in Aug 2015, Joseph had said that his strategy for Olympics 2016 was to focus on 100m Butterfly and 200m Butterfly because he sees himself as a world-class swimmer trying to win. He was intent on winning the 100m Butterfly.

Joseph had a very clear goal. He was going to compete in Rio 2016 and that he was going to win a medal. In fact, while in Rio, he withdrew from the 200m Butterfly and missed out on the 100m Freestyle.  I presume he did so to conserve all his energy for the 100m Butterfly.

Lesson for me:
Goals tell us where to go and what to focus on.  If we do not know where we want to go, our chances of getting there is very low. Hence, I need to help my children create their OWN goals, goals that they feel passionate about, goals that will inspire them.

5) Persevere

Joseph had said that swimming was all about the little things. To achieve his ultimate goal of winning an Olympic medal, he would have to take all those little steps. Even if the trainings were painful, he had to persevere.

He took those little steps towards his goal. And he reached his goal today.

Lesson for me:
No action is too small as long as it propels us towards our goal. Taking a tiny little step forward is better than not taking any at all. That is something I have always believed in and it is reassuring to know Joseph subscribes to that as well. I will continue to remind my children of the tiny steps they can take each day towards their success.

6) Visualise Success

When interviewed by Channel News Asia right after winning his Gold medal, Joseph had said he did not know what to believe, whether he actually did it, or if he was still preparing his race.

That goes to show that like all successful people, Joseph engages in visualisation. He had most likely visualised himself winning the race many times prior to the event. His visualisations were so clear and real that even after the race, he could not tell the difference between his visualisations and reality.

Lesson for me:
Visualisations work. The clearer and more real we can visualise our successes, the easier it will be for us to achieve them. This is a tool I will be using to help my children visualise their success.

7) Being Humble

Why are all of us going wild about Joseph Schooling? For me, it is not just because he has won our first Olympic Gold. Neither is it because he has made an Olympic Record. Instead, it is because I am thoroughly impressed by his humility. And it is the humility in this champion that has made me his fan.

Despite winning against giants like Michael Phelps, Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh, he did not brag. Instead he had said he was “honoured and privileged” to be able to race in an Olympic final alongside great names like Michael, Chad and Laszlo. Wow!

Lesson for me:
While success can be a magnet for fans, humility in the face of success is even more magnetic. That is something I will need to bear in mind as I guide my children to pursue their own success.

Conclusion

Joseph Schooling has been an inspiration not only to athletes in Singapore but to me as well. He is now my role model on how I would like my children to behave in pursuit of their dreams, and more importantly, how I would like them to behave when they have achieved success.

Congratulations, Joseph. I look forward to seeing more of you in the future. Thank you for being such an inspiration for the budding athletes in Singapore. And thank you, for being an inspiration for this mom here. I wish you every success and may you continue to inspire all of us.

– Vivian Kwek-

 

 

Posted on

How To Bring Up Self-Motivated Learners

As parents and educators, we are always looking for ways to help our children be self-motivated learners.  What if I told you it is actually not difficult to achieve that?

Self-Motivation At Work

The last activity my 3.5-year-old asked to do last night before bed was to have a piece of paper and pencil to write her name. She wrote it several times, including the names of the rest of the family, before declaring she was ready to sleep.

This morning, she woke up and asked to play the alphabet game. So we brought out her kit and she happily settled down to trace the alphabets and match the uppercase letters with the lowercase letters.

 

Prior to her interest in the alphabets, she was obsessed with colours and would ask to make different colours. That was when she would bring out her paint set or even our food colouring set to mix different colours together.

She did these activities on her own accord. Not once did I suggest or entice her to do any of them.

Children Are Programmed to Learn

The fascinating thing is all our children are programmed to learn. When they are ready, they will pick up what they want to learn really fast.  All we need to do is to watch for openings like that and offer them what they need.

Introduce Concepts And Let Curiosity Take Over

Why did my preschooler ask to write? How did she know about the alphabet game? Why would she want to mix colours?

My role in her education is to expose her to different concepts and different games. Occasionally I would bring out different games/toys and let her mess around with it.

For example, when she was painting, I took the opportunity to show her how mixing different colours would give us a new colour. And that was all I did. I did not insist that she had to do likewise. I just planted a seed of colour mixing in her mind. A few days later, she tested out mixing different colours on her own when she was painting.

The beauty was she kept repeating the activity over several weeks until she remembered what colours to mix to get whatever colour she wanted. She learned how to mix more colours on her own than what I had shown her. And she learned that all by herself.

Likewise for writing and alphabet recognition. I showed her how her name looked like on paper and she was intrigued. But I did not ask her to write. Some time later she asked me to teach her how to write her name. After some practice, she learned how to do it herself. That subsequently extended to writing the names of the rest of the family. And because she was interested in alphabets, I introduced her the alphabet game matching uppercase and lowercase letters.  Then when she felt like it, she asked to play the game.

We did the same with time. We have a book on time which she enjoys. One day, I showed her a toy clock that she could play with. A few days later, she brought the clock out so she could show the time on the clock as we read the book together at bedtime.

Subsequently she extended that to showing time on the clock that went beyond what was covered in the book.

A lot of the learning that happened resulted from me introducing a concept/toy/game to her once or twice without asking her to do anything. If she wanted to try it out, great. If she was not interested, that was fine too. Invariably, she would pick up the learning on her own. And she almost always learned more than what I had shown her during my introduction of those concepts.

How different would it have been had I structured her play and insisted now was time to mix colours, or now was time to trace letters? Would I have to cajole her? Would I have met with resistance? Would she have willingly spent so much time doing those activities and learning? Would she have extended her learning to find out more than what I had shown her?

The Danger of Over-Structuring

Why is important for us to pick up the cues of our children instead of structuring their play?

The reason is simple. It is because we want our children to be self-driven and self-motivated.

When we constantly tell our children what we want them to do, or entice them to do what we want them to do, we deprive them of the ability to listen to their needs. We deprive them of the time to think about what they want to do. We deprive them of the freedom to pursue their own interests. We deprive them of the opportunity to learn what they want.

How Self Motivation Is Lost

By definition, self-motivation  means doing something because you want to.

Like I mentioned earlier, our children are programmed to learn. But they lose their self-motivation when we over-structure their learning.  Why?

That is because they then see learning as something external to them. They begin to associate learning as something that someone wants them to do, not something they want to do. To them, learning is something their teachers or their parents or their school or the exams want them to know. It is not because THEY want to know.

By and by, our children forget how to be self-driven. They rely on us or someone else to tell them what to do. They lose their initiative. They become disinterested. They lose their self motivation.  They become unmotivated.

What Should We Do?

Our role is to introduce an idea or a concept that triggers curiosity. And that needs to be followed by a keen observation of when that seed of curiosity has taken root so that we can provide the resources when our children are ready to learn.

Math can be learned through games.  History can be learned through play and dramatisation.  Science facts, geography etc, can be learned through songs.  We are so blessed to be living in this day and age where the internet makes such resources readily available to us.

Let Them Play

Playing is what children do best. And playing is how children learn best. When they play, especially play that is self-directed, they do it because they want to. And because they want to, they absorb the lessons from the play effortlessly.

It is extremely important that from young, we give our children time and space to play.

Playing is doing and learning with self motivation.

Playing is NOT a waste of time.

Playing is how children develop curiosity.

Playing is how our children satisfy their curiosity.

Playing is how our children continuously desire to learn and find out more.

Conclusion

The more our children play, the more questions they have, the more they want to find out the answers and the more they are motivated to learn more on their own.  It really is as simple as that.

If you want your children to be self-motivated learners, I strongly encourage you to set aside time for your children to play.